by Joan Boswell
At the far end of the boardwalk where the path climbed up to the filtration plant, the dark outline of a man appeared. He was carrying a bulky pack by the shoulder straps.
And he was coming towards them.
“Let’s go back to Queen Street for a coffee,” Ora said, suddenly nervous.
“Can’t you stop twitching? Where’s Basil?”
Now Basil, too, had vanished. Ora shouted the dog’s name. No sign of him. Where was he?
The man drew closer. He was wearing heavy black boots like the ones skinheads favoured. He looked like a skinhead, too, with his closely shaved head and baggy camouflage pants. Ora’s skin prickled with tiny electric needles, the way it did whenever she had a near miss in traffic. Or last week, when her new boss had asked her into his office and closed the door.
Suddenly, Basil came hurtling out of nowhere, a gold cannonball. Where had he been? He flew past Ora to Melanie, who stroked and tousled his fur. “You’re all wet, boy. What have you been doing?”
“For god’s sake, Melanie, hold him.” A dark, oily substance clung to the dog’s chest and forelegs. “He’s got blood on him!” she cried. “It’s all over your hands.”
“Oh, my god, is he hurt?”
“Basil, stay still.” Ora pulled out the small plastic packet of tissues she always carried in her pocket and tried to wipe him off. In an instant, the papers were soaked a dark reddish brown, but with intense relief, she spotted no wounds. “He’s fine. He hasn’t cut himself. Here, give me your hands.” She used the remaining tissues to clean her friend’s fists, one at a time.
“Bad dog, where have you been?” Ora went on, glaring at Basil, who bounced out of her reach. “Rolling on a filthy dead seagull, I bet. And what have you got in your mouth?”
Basil tried to dodge her, but this time she was able to snatch the red disk free of his teeth. It was a faded Frisbee, pock-marked with threadlike tufts of worn plastic. Dark fluid had settled under the rim, streaking her hands as well.
Horrible, Ora thought. How could the bird’s blood end up there? She chucked the toy onto the sand. Basil leapt down and scooped it up instantly. “Bad dog,” she told him while she foraged through her purse, looking for a bit of paper, anything, to clean her fingers. She settled on her cheque book, tearing off the numbered pages, crumpling and tossing them to the wind, one by one, as she used them. No value to me any more, she thought.
Finished, she looked up. Her heart beat faster.
The man stood fifteen feet away. Motionless, he stared across the lake, his heavy shoulders turned slightly away from them. He dropped his pack on the boards. Ora felt the vibration through the thin soles of her shoes.
Basil bounded up to man, tail wagging. He nudged the man’s leg and dropped the Frisbee beside him. The man’s large fist hung down, unresponsive. The dog nudged him again.
“Bad dog,” Ora called out. “Come here, Basil. Bad dog.”
The man leaned down and picked up the toy. He stared at Ora. Smiled as he sensed her fear. With a sweep of his muscled arm, he flung the Frisbee out over the sand. Basil shot after it.
“Basil!” Ora sprang up. The dog caught the Frisbee in a white flash of teeth. He galloped over the beach, running round and round in a great circle, tail raised to the sky. “Here, boy. Come here, good dog.” Ignoring her pleas, he headed straight back to the man who, with a coolly contemptuous glance at the two women, tossed the Frisbee again.
“For heaven’s sake,” Ora said. “Melanie, help me for once. Call your dog. He never comes to me.”
“What’s the big rush?”
“It’s some man. He looks like a skinhead. He’s using that mucky toy to play fetch with Basil.”
“So let them play.”
“Melanie...” Ora tried to rein in her voice. Her new boss had accused her of being loud and shrill. “I want to leave. He’s making me nervous.”
“Oh, stop it. Why do we always have to do what you want? You haven’t changed since grade school.”
“And you’ve never grown out of grade school,” Ora flared. “You only survive because your friends and I look out for you. And who looks out for me? Nobody!”
“Why does it always have to be about you?” A dark obstinacy twisted Melanie’s mouth. “If you’re that worried, go home. I’m staying till Basil gets tired.”
Anger charged Ora’s courage. She crossed over the worn brown planks of the boardwalk until she was within striking distance of the man. He was scribbling in a notebook clipped to his belt by a thin brass chain. She realized that he was young, no more than twenty-five. In spite of the cold, he wore only a drab green singlet over his pants. Her new boss liked to call those tank tops “wife beater shirts”, no doubt to fool his staff into believing that he was young, modern and full of ideas. He liked to show off his tattoo on casual Fridays, too, but his discreet Zen symbol looked laughably puny next to the vivid, diabolical patterns that swirled up the forearms of Basil’s new friend.
Basil had returned, his pink tongue spilling blissfully from his mouth, the Frisbee an offering at the stranger’s feet. The man looked up from his notebook.
She gasped. Cobra eyes, red diamonds on a yellow background, bored down on her. Contact lenses, she realized, recovering. She’d spotted similar ones in the window of a “Goth shop” that she’d passed on her way to a gallery opening on Queen Street West.
He dropped his notebook. It swung on its chain as his arm flicked out, hurling the Frisbee. Basil charged after it.
Ora’s knees wavered. A metal tube with an oily blue sheen protruded through the top of his pack. Oh, god, he has a gun.
Heart pounding, she cleared her throat. Pretend everything’s normal. “Excuse me, are you the man who helped my friend get her dog back?” she asked. The man ignored her. “If you are, my friend’s sorry about your sandwich. I—I mean we—want to pay you for it.”
“Doesn’t your friend feed her dog?”
So it is him. Words rushed into her dry throat. “Of course Melanie feeds him, but Basil has an uncontrollable passion for bread. Today in the bakery café, it was so funny...” she pushed her fingers against her mouth to force the tremor out of her voice, “Basil stole four croissants when the owner wasn’t looking. The minute her back was turned, up he went on his hind legs and plucked them delicately off the counter. She turned around, he ate one. She turned around, he ate another. Basil moves like lightning. He’s quite graceful for such a big dog.”
“And you didn’t stop him. Just sat there and laughed,” he broke in.
Ora blinked. “I paid the bakery back, of course.”
“That’s what you rich bitches do. Pay people off.”
“I’m not rich, I’m broke.” The words erupted, anger and humiliation overriding her fear. “The bank fired me last week after twenty-five years.” And I listened to investment advice from my cheating, incompetent ex-husband.
“Oh, boo-hoo.” He jerked the rifle from his pack. A military model with a mounted telescope sight. He braced it on his shoulder and scanned the horizon, squinting through the lens.
Act normal, just act normal. “Look here, I know it’s none of my business, but isn’t what you’re doing illegal?”
“You’re right. It’s none of your business.”
It’s okay, she told herself. That old hippy Tyrone skates up and down the boardwalk. He’ll be back any minute. He can help us, even if he is a pervert.
The barrel of the rifle swept back and forth along the water line. Where was Basil?
“Please put that away. You could hurt the dog—”
The roar of the rifle cut through her words. In the distance, a rupture of white feathers. Gulls shrieked, swirling in a mad white tornado. Their noise was intense, terrifying.
Basil! Where’s Basil? To Ora’s overwhelming relief, the dog stood frozen, tail down, halfway to the water.
“Ora?” Melanie cried back at the bench. “Where’s Basil?”
“Playing.”
“What’s
going on?”
“Nothing is going on,” Ora bit out. Summoning every authoritative instinct she’d honed on the job, she brushed past the man and stepped down off the boardwalk. Cold sand poured into her shoes. She stumbled over fragments of bone-white shell, rusted bits of metal, and crumbles of Styrofoam, the urban detritus of a harsh winter, trying to keep the dog in sight. With every step, she felt the man’s crimson cobra eye through the gun sight, burying into her spine. Move, move, she urged her legs.
She’d only covered a few feet when a piercing whistle drilled through the air. Basil trotted obediently over to the man, who lowered his rifle. A sharp click. He appeared to be reloading.
By the time Ora had staggered back to Melanie’s bench, Melanie had wavered to her feet, the dog’s harness jingling in her hand. Ora seized her friend’s arm and said in a whisper: “Try not to react. He has a gun.”
“What? Why is he shooting?”
“He’s killing sea gulls. For now.”
“What?” Melanie’s podgy features spasmed.
“Listen to me! Get Basil over here and harness him up. I’ll keep the guy talking. Hopefully, he’ll think I’m a nattering, useless old woman like everybody else does. Haul your butt back up to Queen Street. Call the police.”
“What?”
“Call your dog!”
“Ora!” Melanie’s fists clutched her coat. “Don’t leave me.”
Ora broke free. Teetering on her heels, she forced herself back over to the stranger.
Watching the man’s muscles flex under his thin shirt as he stared down the rifle barrel, she feared her bladder would give way. She was thin, suffering from the beginnings of osteoporosis. Physically, she didn’t stand a chance. She waved madly at Basil, willing him to return to Melanie, but the dog uttered a low whine, crept forward, and nuzzled the man’s knee. The man rested his free hand on the dog’s forehead.
“Basil likes you,” she managed to say.
The man ran a finger over Basil’s head. The dog’s deep brown eyes studied him as if he were the only human left in the world. The man lowered the gun, picked up the Frisbee. He tossed it in the direction of the seagulls. Basil shot after it. In an instant, the rifle flew back to his shoulder.
“For god’s sake, what are you doing?” Ora screamed. Instinctively, her hands clawed the man’s hard arm to grab the gun. A toss of his shoulder sent her reeling.
“Fuck you, lady.”
“And fuck you right back. How can you shoot an innocent animal? He trusts you, you damn coward!”
Turning, he fired. The cloud of gulls erupted. Basil, unharmed, dashed into the whirlwind of feathers. He chased the maddened birds, his barks echoing.
“I wasn’t shooting at the dog,” the man said, with a murderous look at Ora. He opened and closed the rifle with icy precision.
“Why are you shooting the birds? They have a right to live.”
“I’m purging the world of vermin.”
“That was you shooting earlier, wasn’t it?”
He shoved the rifle under his arm, grabbed his notebook, and began writing. Back at the bench, Melanie slumped over, sobbing.
“You’ve upset my friend,” Ora said, her fear burning away. “She thinks you shot her dog. He’s not just her pet, you know. He’s her life.”
No response. He kept on writing.
“The Lions Club didn’t want Melanie to have him, because Basil is, well, unfocused, that’s how they put it. They were going to put him down. They’d just lost $25,000 and two years training him. But Melanie was so attached to him, I talked to my contact there, my former brother-in-law...”
“Shut up, lady. I know what you’re doing.”
“Oh,” Ora stammered. “What am I doing?” She waited a moment. When he didn’t reply, she said, “You’re right, I’m not good at establishing rapport. I can’t talk people into anything. Or out of anything. In meetings, I can’t spell out what everyone’s thinking. Or should be thinking. My brain doesn’t work that way.”
“Your brain doesn’t work at all.”
“My ex-boss would agree with you.”
“You don’t know who I am.”
“Yes, I do.” She hesitated, then said, “I was waiting for you last night. And this morning.” He raised an eyebrow. “You’re Death.”
“You’re full of shit. You’re pathetic, thinking you can trick me by acting all spiritual and New Age.”
“I am not full of shit.” Ora wrenched the pills from her coat pocket. “See these?”
“Tylenol,” he snorted.
“Barbiturates. I was going to down them with a pint of vodka and get into the jacuzzi. The hot water opens your veins, makes the drug absorb faster. But I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.”
“You’re just whining because you’re broke.”
“You’re young. You don’t know what it means to lose your savings at my age. If only I’d been able to keep on working.” The words cascaded out, Ora couldn’t stop them. “So stupid to carry on like I was still thirty-five. Your abilities fade. Everyone knows it but you. And you learn that life has limits. The story ends. So much sooner than I ever thought possible.”
Basil came loping back across the stretch of sand. He edged closer to the man and dropped the Frisbee, panting expectantly. The man dropped his notebook and fondled the dog’s head with his free hand, ruffling his ears, rubbing his chin. “Life is a box, lady.”
“I can’t disagree with you.”
Ora’s legs trembled so violently, she collapsed and sat down on the boardwalk, dangling her legs over the edge. She tipped the sand out of one shoe, then the other. Melanie uttered a low keening wail, curled sideways on her bench. She can’t even save herself, Ora thought in desperate frustration.
“What has made you so angry?” she asked the man.
“Stop the social worker shit.” He forced the rifle back together. “Don’t pretend you never wanted to blow someone to pieces.”
“I did want my ex-boss to die with all my heart.” She relived the patronizing, dismissive words he’d dispensed at their last meeting. They’d burned away the last illusion of her self-worth like acid.
The dog settled between them, resting his chin on the man’s black boot. Ora curled a hand round Basil’s leather collar. She swallowed and said, “You shouldn’t give up in spite of what I’m planning to do. I’m old, I’ve run out of time. But you’re young, you have decades to reclaim your life.”
“No,” he said with quiet finality. “I shot somebody.”
She knew then that Tyrone wasn’t coming back. And that Basil’s joyous new dog toy must be Tyrone’s Frisbee, soaked in the old hippy’s blood.
“You shot Tyrone, the old hippy, didn’t you? Out on the reservoir where the boardwalk ends.”
His eyes narrowed. His bones seemed to harden as she watched.
“Did Tyrone collide with you? Is that what happened? Or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“I was waiting for him.”
“What?”
“He was my father.”
A cry of horrified surprise escaped her. “He abused you.”
“Shut up!” His fists looked like they’d break his gun apart.
“Ora!” Melanie sobbed. “Where’s Basil? Tell me he’s all right.”
“Make her shut the fuck up.”
Ora stood up, grasping Basil up by his collar. “I’ll take Melanie home. We’ll leave you alone.”
“Go sit on the bench. The dog stays.”
“My friend needs her dog.”
“The dog stays.”
His rifle was pointing directly at her face, inches from her chin. She stared into the two black pitiless holes in disbelief. Death, even though she’d longed for it, still astonished her.
“Are you deaf? Go sit on the bench.”
“What are you going to do?” Ora asked, though she knew very well.
“Don’t you ever stop talking?” he asked wearily. Ora released her grip on
Basil’s collar and backed away from him.
“Wait!”
She froze in her tracks.
“You’re old. You’d know. He’s dead, but he’s still in my head. How long before he goes away?”
“Your mind is keeping Tyrone alive.” She thought of her ex-boss. She’d let his odious words destroy her spirit, had nearly let them kill her. And now when she knew that only she could save herself, it was too late. “Your hatred is too strong. He’ll never leave unless you get help.”
“Fuck you.”
“I know it isn’t what you wanted me to say, but please, don’t do this.”
“Forget it, lady.”
“Shoot me if you want, but please don’t hurt my friend.” To her shame and dismay, tears streaked down her cheeks, dribbling off her chin. “My friend has never hurt anyone in her life. All she wants is to write bad poetry and live out her life with Basil. Please, I’m begging you, leave her alone.”
“Go sit on the bench.”
Ora dropped onto the seat next to Melanie, her limbs numb. “What’s happening, Ora?” Melanie whimpered. “What is he going to do? I can’t hear Basil.”
“Basil’s fine. Everything is going to be all right.”
Melanie wiped her eyes. “I should have listened to you. And not just today. I’m sorry, Ora.”
“Don’t apologize. Everything is absolutely fine.” Ora reached over and gripped her friend’s hand tightly.
She felt Basil brush past her leg. He padded over next to Melanie, sighed and sat down. Sobbing, Melanie plunged her hands in his fur.
Ora heard the man’s heavy boots on the boardwalk, then a dull clump as he stepped off into the soft earth beside it. He’s going behind us. He’s going to do it from behind.
She closed her eyes. Waited.
Why is he taking so long? Why doesn’t he just do it? We’re all together, she thought. It’ll all be over in the wink of an eye. We’re here and in the next instant, we wont be. Here and not here. Here and not here, she chanted silently.
The explosion, when it came, was the loudest sound Ora had ever heard. Light burst into her eyes. Melanie clutched her arm so painfully, she cried out.
She felt icy cold, but she could still see. She could still breathe. Slowly, the sounds of the world seeped back: the clang of the streetcar across Kew Gardens, the whistling of wind from the lake, Melanie’s deep sobs, Basil’s frenzied barking...